A Childless Man
by Brenda Shaffer-Shiring
Summary: While babysitting young Naomi Wildman, Chakotay finds himself thinking of another child. Set shortly after 'Prey.'


TITLE: A Childless Man  
AUTHOR: Brenda Shaffer-Shiring  
FEEDBACK TO: shafshir@microconnect.net  
SERIES: VOY  
RATING: PG  
CODES: C. Angst.  
PART: 1/1  
ARCHIVE: Just ask!  
DISCLAIMER: Paramount owns all, but sometimes I wish they'd give these fellas a bit more thought than they usually do.  
SUMMARY: While babysitting for little Naomi, Chakotay finds himself thinking of another child. (First appeared in "Delta Quadrant 8," edited by Elizabeth Knauel. Out of print.)  
  
  
A Childless Man  
by Brenda Shaffer-Shiring  
  
(Author's note: This story takes place shortly after the episode "Prey.")  
  
  
It was a quiet night on Voyager, and Chakotay welcomed that, after the tumult of the day. The Hirogen were gone, at least for the moment, and the ship was alone in space. He only hoped that Torres and her team would have time to complete all the repairs battered Voyager needed, before that situation changed. Since they seemed likely to be travelling through Hirogen territory some time yet -- and since his own observations, as well as the hunters' demonstrated behavior, suggested that further diplomatic efforts would be futile -- the ship had to be ready for anything, and as quickly as possible.  
  
In a way, he was contributing to that repair effort even now, although a frustrated, overworked Torres had long since cast him out of Engineering. Though he was merely sitting quietly, reviewing damage reports on a computer screen, he was doing that work in Sam Wildman's cabin.  
  
Working on a persnickety repair to a particularly delicate environmental subsystem, Torres had bemoaned the absence of Wildman, the environmental tech most familiar with that subsystem. When Chakotay asked why she didn't simply summon the junior officer, Torres had given him a withering look and asked if he was prepared to offer day-care services for Wildman's young daughter.  
  
Sure, he'd said, having had quite enough of the chief engineer's irritability for a few hours. //Why not? It'll obviously be more useful than anything I'm doing here.// And he'd gone to Wildman's cabin.  
  
Sam Wildman had seemed surprised, and a little flustered, when the first officer volunteered to keep an eye on little Naomi while her mother worked. Though more than a few members of the crew vied for the chance to sit for Voyager's "baby," Chakotay had never before put in a bid. But she'd accepted his offer easily enough, going into the next room to dress for duty as he waited, then giving him a few brief instructions before she left.  
  
Of course, it wasn't as if watching Naomi was much of a chore at this point. //Probably something even an inexperienced first officer-type like me could handle,// Chakotay thought wryly. Having already received her nightly bedtime story from Neelix, the little girl was soundly and contentedly asleep. Chakotay's only job now was to be on hand in case of a sudden, unexpected wake-up, so that Naomi would know she hadn't been left alone. Though he had never sat for her before, Naomi knew him -- there were few adults on Voyager that she didn't recognize -- and, although a little shy in his presence, seemed to like him well enough. //And I suppose in a pinch I could always ask Neelix to come back.// Neelix always knew how to soothe and cheer Naomi; he and the little girl adored each other. Like many others on Voyager, Chakotay suspected that the cheerful Talaxian was as close as Wildman's daughter would come to having a flesh-and-blood father, unless or until the ship made it back to the Alpha Quadrant.  
  
Saving his work, Chakotay rose and stretched. Though he wouldn't reset it for only a few hours' stay, the desk chair, set for the much more compact Wildman, cramped his long limbs more than a bit. Crossing to the replicator (and inputting his own code so that his request wouldn't be debited from the ensign's account), he ordered up an icy glass of lemonade. Savoring a few tart swallows, he set the glass down at Wildman's desk before going to the bedroom doorway and looking in on his small charge.  
  
Naomi was sound asleep, her short arms and her slight body wrapped around some furry creature whose exact nature Chakotay couldn't make out in the dimness. At least, he thought she was asleep. Shouldn't he see her blanket moving as she breathed?  
  
He knew he was being ridiculous. With 24th-century Federation medical knowledge and care, even babies didn't stop breathing suddenly, for no apparent reason -- and in any event, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome could hardly apply to a child of two, even had Naomi been no more developed than a wholly-Terran child of that age. Her breathing must simply be imperceptible to Chakotay's eyes, in this light and from this distance.  
  
Nonetheless, moved by some primitive impulse, he went stealthily, silently to her bedside and crouched low, looking at the girl closely. Sure enough, she was inhaling and exhaling softly and evenly, her feather-breaths barely seeming to lift the coverlet even at this range. Oddly relieved, he stood, and stayed at the bedside for a moment, simply watching her.  
  
She was a pretty child, he thought with a slight smile. Some of the more provincial members of his own species might not agree, given Naomi's differences from the Human norm, but to Chakotay's widely-traveled eyes those differences simply added to her childish appeal. No doubt, some day a similarly-traveled young man would look on the girl's unique physiognomy and, in all sincerity, pronounce it "charming."  
  
As he had hoped that some day, a young woman might have done for his son.  
  
That unexpected recollection made Chakotay stiffen as if he had been slapped.  
  
Of what was he thinking? He had no son. Nor had he ever had one, no matter what he might once have believed.  
  
But he *had* believed it, he remembered, had considered Seska's son his own -- his blood, his clan, his responsibility. //Accept the child in your heart,// his father had told him in the course of an agonized vision-quest, and Chakotay had, o spirits he had, however against his will and however that acceptance brought him pain. He had accepted, half-glimpsed and blurred on the viewscreen though it was, the image of a little boy, brown of eye and dark of hair, with light tan skin that might have come from him and the traces of forehead markings that could easily have come from the boy's mother. Accepted. In his heart, in his soul, accepted. Though he had wanted no children at all (and far less by Seska, thief of his heart, of his trust, and finally of his DNA), though the mere prospect terrified him, accepted.  
  
Despite all that, the child had not been his.  
  
When he'd learned that, for the first time in his life he'd thought of himself as a childless man.  
  
His footsteps still silent on the carpeted floor, the first officer somehow managed to make his way out of the bedroom, and away from the only baby who belonged on Voyager. Once in the living room, he went to one of the heavily-insulated exterior ports, and rested his forehead against the cool surface.  
  
These last years had been hectic, for Chakotay as for Voyager, his time and his thoughts as often as not preoccupied. He hadn't thought of his almost-son in some time, but now the memories had him in their relentless grip.  
  
//A son,// Kolopak had teased him, bemused. //Oh, this is the reason for your despair. Was he born with two arms, and two legs, and a heart that beats? Then it's a cause for celebration.// But Chakotay had not been able to celebrate, not even to smile. His son (if he agreed that he had a son, if he *accepted* that he had a son) was in enemy hands, his safety, his future, his very life at risk.  
  
Chakotay had seen his homeworld devastated, had seen his friends tortured, had endured torture himself -- and none of that had left him feeling as vulnerable as did the knowledge that he had a child in danger, a child whom he might or might not be able to save. None of those experiences had left him with the hollow ache of the awareness that he had a child whom he might never hold, or touch, or claim.  
  
True, he had not wanted a child. He had never even thought of a child before that bitter, fateful day when Seska had announced, for all the bridge crew to hear, that she had conceived a baby by him, a stolen child made without his desire, or volition, or knowledge. From that moment to the moment when he saw the child's blurred image on Voyager's viewscreen, he had fought to deny any feelings for the baby beyond his sense of violation, beyond his helpless, frustrated anger at the baby's mother -- and yet, insidiously, the feelings had crept up on him. All of Chakotay's younger life, he had been reared to believe in the importance of family, of heritage; though in young manhood he had rejected those traditional attachments (and so had gone to Starfleet), in maturity he had reclaimed them as his own (and so had returned to his homeworld to serve in the Maquis). Now, despite his will, he could not simply refuse those ties.  
  
//Accept the child in your heart,// Kolopak said.  
  
But now Chakotay realized that his father's words had only forced him to acknowledge what he had, in fact, already known. By the time he'd heard those words, the choice had -- however much against his will -- been made. The child was his.  
  
Back in Sam Wildman's cabin, long after those fateful days, Chakotay shook his head, sharply, almost impatiently. The child was not his. According to the Doctor, and a gene scan which even a genetics novice like the first officer could read, Seska's son had possessed no Human genes whatever. The basic cell structure of his small body had been made up entirely of Cardassian and Kazon DNA. The child was Culluh's son, and had never been otherwise. The matter had nothing to do with Chakotay's will, or his belief, or even his wish.  
  
//My wish?// he asked himself, surprised by the thought. //But I didn't want a child.//  
  
Then Chakotay noticed the verb tense he was using.  
  
He had not wanted a child. Then he had had a child, however ephemeral his possession had been. He had held it in his heart, if not in his arms.  
  
He had not named the boy; something in him had shied away from such an intimate gesture as bestowing a name, to an infant he had never touched. But when the people of Voyager had given their assent to his need to pursue the child, he had let himself have thoughts of what it might mean, to be a father to the boy. He had wondered, would he, alone and in a demanding and necessary job, be able to give the child the care and attention an infant -- and later, a growing boy -- would require?  
  
He had asked himself, what would he teach the boy of his ancient people? A contrary so much of his own life, and living so very far from any natural world, in circumstances vastly different from any his ancestors could have anticipated, could Chakotay rear the boy to honor the old ways? Should he? And could Chakotay teach the child to honor his maternal heritage as well, feeling as he did about Seska and the Cardassians? But surely a child should not be raised to despise and dishonor half of himself....  
  
He had questioned whether, should Voyager indeed make it home, his people would even accept the child. The boy bore the features of their deadly enemy. Kolopak had reminded Chakotay of Sant-Onge, the son of a woman of the People and her white rapist, who had nonetheless become a brave warrior for, and an honored member of, the People. But the differences between a son of the People and a white man were slight compared to the differences between a son of the People and a Cardassian, and Chakotay was well aware that his people were no saints....  
  
There at Wildman's window, the first officer stopped at that thought, hands fisting as another, newer pain sank its claws into his heart. He had not known what a moot point that last would be until just days ago, when he had received his "letter from home" through the alien communications array. When he had learned that the war for independence in the Demilitarized Zone was over, and that the colonists had lost. Now, he knew that there were no more Maquis. The Cardassians and their allies fought the Federation in yet another war in the same territory, and those colonists who still survived were left undefended. Except for the tiny enclaves that still remained on Earth, there might well be no more People, and no one to accept or reject a son who claimed that ancient lineage.  
  
It might be that Chakotay had no people, except for those on Voyager. No people, no world, to give a child, except for what he could find here.  
  
Better, then, that he had no child.  
  
And yet, he thought, looking out into the stars, those on this ship had risked everything -- lives and hopes and futures -- to give him that child he might have had. All of them risked, and some of them lost. It might have been people, and world, enough.  
  
Which, of course, only made it all the more appalling that they had risked, and lost, for nothing. For his delusions. For his wishes. For his yearning.  
  
For a child who had never been Chakotay's, save in his heart.  
  
The first officer turned away from the window. He had work to do, and no time for this kind of self-indulgence. He had thought himself over all of this, long ago.  
  
He passed the bedroom door again, and glanced in, to see little Naomi lying there, curled sound asleep beneath the dim glow of the stars. And he wondered:  
  
What might it have been like, to walk past the bedroom door of his own quarters, and look in to see a child lying there, warm, trusting, content?  
  
What might it have been like, to go in, take that child in his arms, press his lips to that small brow?  
  
What might it have been like, to know that his father's line, that their decimated People, would continue for one more generation, at least -- even if through the agency of someone who had not intended the act as a gift?  
  
He did not know.  
  
He did not know.  
  
He did not know.  
  
He was a childless man. In his heart, he feared that he always would be.  
  
And deep in his soul, he cursed Seska, cursed Culluh, cursed the very gods and spirits themselves for teaching him what those words meant.  
  
By the time Wildman came back to her quarters, Chakotay was nearly finished with his paperwork, and more than ready to leave.  
  
He would not offer to babysit again.  
  
END 


End file.
